Heroism

On occasion,
There comes a time,
When a soul steps right out of a comic,
Cape and all,
Ordinary folk with extraordinary mettle,
A flesh and blood hero,
Perhaps they pluck an infant from an inferno,
Selflessly interrupt a mugging,
Or raise a fortune for philanthropy,

You see,
Heroism is the heroin of heroes,
They can’t help themselves,
Something ethereal urges them towards good,
And neither should they stop,
We need more Robins and Wonderwomen,
The world is villainous enough,
There has to be a redress of balance somehow,
So champion your everyday champions.

Treehouse

In another life,
Another time,
I would have had a treehouse,
A quaint outpost in the woods,

The sun would unfurl,
And I would hide from the bad dreams,
The negative souls,
Secure in my arboreal fortress,

From up there I could see the horizon,
It would call jovially,
And I would breathe easy,
Nuzzled by the skin of oak leaves,

Those stuck in hate below,
They may throw stones,
Take hatchets to the roots,
But nature would prevail,

She always does.

Invasion

It appears an invasion has begun,
An all-out assault,
With bayonet and landship,
The dark thoughts are coming,
They keep trying to cross the picket lines,
To poison the well,
With their gunpowder plots and their coups,

But the defences hold,
They have to this time,
My mind has been newly fortified,
With pillbox and barbed wire,
My mental core shall kill them in the trenches,
Never again shall I be occupied again,
Taken over by invisible negativity.

Sunlit Path

Despite being in the dark,
With a void in my thoughts,
I am on a sunlit path,
Twisting and coiling,
Aureate in its countenance,
As if even the stones are grinning,
I can’t see the end,
My finished product,
The sun blinds my minds eye,
She doesn’t want to give away the surprise,
But I believe in this summery trail,
The path is fulgent,
The future is bright,
The rays of the sun say so.

Debris

Yesterday has passed the torch,
The hurricane has subsided,
And we sit amongst the wreckage,
The mess we lived through,
Fractured rubble and scrap metal,
Broken toys and ruptured sinew,
A clutter of blood and alloy,

Now it’s a new day,
We try to put it all back together,
Giving it a go,
Sticky tape and rivets,
Sewing limbs and organs back on,
Welding and patching up the chassis,
Shoring up the heart and mind,

We can always rally and rebuild,
Yesterday resulted in debris,
But today,
Today we try again.

Stonehenge Empire

I’ve been told I should leave a kingdom,
My own domain of art,
A legacy to stand the trials of time,
So I began placing pebbles,
One-by-one as the years pass,
Painstakingly arranging a Stonehenge,
A monument of words and mineral,
Constructing some facsimile of a nation,
My soon-to-b empire,
I’ve started small,
I’m no colossus,
I’m only able to move stones thus far,
But I’m measuring up the boulders,
And the mountains after that.

The Filth

We are the filth,
The dross,
What’s left in the tray,
When all potential has dripped away,
Reposed in our own grime,

We are the trash,
The rubbish,
Broken tin cans and old plasters,
The fetid stink behind the fridge,
Playmates of carrion and maggots,

Despite the sewage we are,
We are yet alive,
We could hold our noses,
Perhaps all hope is not lost,
Even garbage can become a sculpture,

Recycled,
Given purpose.

Demon Hunter

Within each of us is a forest,
Wintry and ensconced in deep fog,
It is replete with demons,
Past events given terrible form,
Haunting each day we open our eyes,
Every emotional wound,
Every failure,
Every neurotic belief,
Every chance you didn’t grip,

But a piece of our soul fights back,
A demon hunter,
Our internal dialogue of positivity,
Leather-clad and under wide-brimmed hat,
A spitting image of your self belief,
Fighting blade and hammer,
Stalking each incubus with stake in hand,
Sparring with every horror that brings you down,
Decapitating every insecurity and exposing their fatuity,

This slayer of monsters,
Their war will never cease,
To once again bring about your dawn,
And sustain your smile,
If only you’d believe in their cause.

Soulwork

Like our frames of flesh,
Our souls can sustain dents and cracks,
Harmed by barbed situations and jagged tongues,
Our essence bleeds out of these wounds,
Manifesting as turmoil and angst,
Our internal peace shattered into fragments,

Like flesh they can be knitted anew,
Our nirvana of vitality restored,
But the tools are very much different,
It is not the demesne of the mechanic to fix,
The workshop lies in our own minds,
Meditation and self-love are the utensils at hand,

It takes perseverance,
Listening for the hurts of our spirits,
Taking needle and blowtorch to each wound,
Incense and peace and shadow work,
It’s an ongoing inward pilgrimage,
To get back to ourselves.

Glimmer

Hope,
It’s said to shine,
To glitter in luminescent butterflies,
Shades of all prisms,
It’s a currency we spend to continue our days,
A penny a day keeps despair at bay,

Hope,
It’s said to glimmer,
A diamond in your minds eye,
A beacon in the black,
The light at the end of a morose tunnel,
A reason to tread through another day,

Of course ofttimes it’s just a cheap bulb,
A train at the end of that tunnel,
Or perhaps it’s a marksman’s scope,
A trick of the sun,
Hope and optimism are manmade farces,
Reality is rarely so idyllic.